Bulgarian Science and Maths Activity

THE MAN WHO INVENTED THE COMPUTER

JOHN ATANASOFF




"After the prototype had started working, we were convinced we could build a computer capable of calculating whatever we would like to", wrote Atanasoff. Having demonstrated the viability of the four major principles, the prototype unequivocally opened the way for all present day computers.
In their history of the ENIAC computer, Alice R. Burks and Arthur W. Burks summarize the Atanasoff achievement as follows: "He invented a new type of a serial storage module, applicable to digital electronic computing. He formulated, developed and proved the major principles involved in electronic circuits for digital computing, principles that included arithmetical operations, control, transition from one to another number base systems, transfer and storage of data, and synchronized clocking of the operations. Having applied that data storage and those principles, he constructed a well-balanced electronic computer with centralized architecture, including storage, and arithmetically controlled input/output devices. He had invented the first-ever specialized electronic computer with such a degree of multi-aspect applicability."

BIOGRAPHY

John Atanasoff's father, Ivan Atanasoff, was born in the village of Boyadjick, Bulgaria. Ivan Atanasoff had lost his own father in 1876, when the latter was brutally killed in the April Uprising of the Bulgarians against the Ottoman Empire. In 1889, when Ivan Atanasoff was thirteen years old, he emmigrated to the United States accompanied by an uncle. He later married Iva Lucena, a mathematics teacher. John Vincent Atanasoff was born in the town of Hamilton, New York on October 4, 1903. After John's birth, the Atanasoff family moved a number of times as Ivan Atanasoff sought better employment in several different electrical engineering positions. They eventually settled in Brewster, Florida, where John completed grade school. The Atanasoff home in Brewster was the first house the family had lived in that was equipped with electricity. By age nine, John had taught himself how to repair faulty electric wiring and light fixtures on their back-porch.

It was recognized early that John Atanasoff had both a passion and talent for mathematics. His youthful interest in baseball was quickly forgotten once his father showed him the logarithmic slide rule he had bought for facilitating engineering calculations. The slide rule completely captivated the nine-year-old boy, who spent hours studying the instructions and delighting in the fact that this mathematical tool consistently resulted in correct solutions to problems. Young John's obsession with the slide rule soon led to a series of discoveries on the logarithmic principles underlying slide rule operation and, subsequently, to a study of trigonometric functions. It was not long before the gifted youth had achieved substantial progress in his math studies. At this time John's mother introduced him to counting systems and number bases other than base ten, including an introduction to the binary system which would prove important in his later work.

John Atanasoff completed his high school course in two years, with excellence in both science and mathematics. He had decided to become a theoretical physicist, and with that goal in mind, entered the University of Florida in Gainesville in 1921. Because the university curriculum did not offer degrees in physics, John began his undergraduate studies in the electrical engineering program. The knowledge of electronics and higher math that John acquired as an electrical engineering student would later prove fortuitous in helping to transform the theory of the computer into a working reality

John Atanasoff graduated from the University of Florida in Gainesville in 1925, with a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering. He received his Master's degree in mathematics from the Iowa State College in Ames, Iowa in 1926. After completing his graduate studies, Atanasoff accepted a position teaching physics and mathematics at Iowa State College. He was then accepted into the doctoral program at the University of Wisconsin, and received his doctoral degree (Ph. D.) in theoretical physics from Wisconsin in 1930. In his doctoral thesis, "The Dielectric Constant of Helium", Atanasoff was required to do many complicated and time consuming computations. Although he utilized the Monroe mechanical calculator, one of the best machines of the time, to assist in his tedious computations, the shortcomings of this machine were painfully obvious and motivated him to think about the possibility of developing a more sophisticated calculating machine. After receiving his Ph. D. in theoretical physics in July 1930, John returned to the staff of Iowa State College and began his work on developing a better and faster computing machine.

In 1970 John Atanasoff was invited to Bulgaria by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, and the Bulgarian Government conferred to him the Cyrille and Methodius Order of Merit First Class. This was his first public recognition, and it was awarded to him three years before similar honors were conferred to him in the United States. The credit for this timely recognition of Atanasoff's achievement should be given to the Bulgarian academicians, Blaghovest Sendov, Ph.D. and Kyrille Boyannov, Ph.D., among others. During his lifetime, the highest honor and recognition awarded to John Vincent Atanasoff, the Father of the Computer, was the National Medal of Science and Technology, conferred to him by George H. W. Bush in 1990

THE COMPUTER

In the past century, one of the highest peaks in that respect was John Atanasoff, the inventor of the first electronic computer in the world. The significance of each and every action is determined by its consequences. Atanasoff's invention started the information revolution, which has changed the world. What did John Atanasoff do in fact? The idea of a computer with program operation had been known a hundred years before he began constructing his computer. That idea belonged to the English mathematician Charles Babbage but was not realized because of the technical difficulties of building it with mechanical components. Before John Atanasoff, a great number of mechanical calculating machines were built. However the big breakthrough was made by John Atanasoff who abandoned mechanics and designed electronic circuits for calculating by use of a binary system of numbers. Nowadays, we see that quite natural and simple but the genius prevailed over tradition.
The principles of John Atanasoff's computer, though seemingly outdated today, are the basis of the thousands of millions of computers, without which modern society cannot exist.
In the late 1930s, John Atanasoff was still trying to develop ways to
facilitate the process of calculating solutions to the extended
systems of linear algebraic equations that were applicable to his
research work. He became convinced that the digital approach
offered considerable advantages over the slower and less accurate
analog machines. In December of 1939, working with his graduate
student Clifford Berry, John Atanasoff developed and built the
prototape of the first electronic digital computer ,which
would be fully completed in 1942. This prototape of the first
computer included four significant and entirely novel operating
principles in its operation. The binary system , regenerative data
storage , logic circuits as elements of a program , and electronic
elements as data carrying media.
The ABC computer would have been fully operative by 1943, had
the efforts of John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry not been
interrupted by World War II.In September of 1942, Atanasoff was conscripted into the military and was forced to set aside his work on the computer. He began working at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory (NOL), a research laboratory at the Armed Forces Ordnance Administration, where, as a theoretical physicist, he was put in charge of testing acoustic mines, depth charges, and other similar projects. From 1942 to 1966, Atanasoff\'s scientific research centered on the dynamic principles of naval ships. During this time, he patented more than 30 devices, including the first mine-sweeping unit for blowing up hydrodynamic naval mines; instruments for detection and recording of high amplitude seismic and sonic waves; a unit computing and recording projectile trajectory errors in artillery shelling; postal sorting systems; automated systems for parcel post handling; quick search systems for classified information items; and an electronic quartz clock. Simultaneously, he worked on several developments related to national defense and naval armament systems, including work on guided missiles.